–A report from the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board finds what you probably already knew: Our tax code is a mess. The committee has made a number of recommendations including consolidating redundant tax credits and a simplified return. And no, despite Paul Volcker’s stewardship, there’s no VAT proposal in there.

–It sounds like this weekend’s Fed symposium turned into a debate over fiscal policy in the face of swelling deficits and whether the Fed can step into the breach. Of course there was no consensus, but I think this rings true:

“The Fed has in many ways been left holding the bag while fiscal policy has fallen short,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that has urged an immediate commitment to reduce the deficit in the medium term. “There is excessive pressure on the Fed, because of the uncertainty about fiscal policy.”

Pakistan’s floods—like the tsunami that swept across Indonesia’s northern provinces in 2004—threaten to set the country’s economic growth back by years. For the United States, preventing such an outcome should be recognized as a strategic as well as a humanitarian imperative.